Future City Engineering

Do you love to play Sim City?Do you enjoy building scale models with recycled materials?Do you think about the future of the planet?

Compete in Future City Engineering, and design a city of the future!!The competition has several components:Play Sim City!Write an essay and narrative!Build a scale model of your city!Present your ideas to a panel of judges at Regional Competition!

At least three students are needed to form a team, and you'll need an engineer mentor.

Stay tuned for more information about upcoming informational meetings on our campus. Check the following website for more information about the Future City Engineering program: www.futurecity.org​The Regional competition will be held at UT Arlington on January 27, 2018

“ We have to stop building cities as if everyone is 30 years-old and athletic.” Gil Penalosa, Executive Director, 8-80 Cities

What does it mean to be a senior citizen? The official definition in most countries is a person who is more than 60 or 65 years old. Beyond that, there is little else that seniors have in common. Today, a revolution in the “culture of aging” is underway, and timeworn notions of the elderly no longer fit. Older adults are living longer, staying in the workforce longer, and contributing to their communities in myriad ways. But aging can have its challenges. As people get older, they may experience physical and cognitive changes. Loss of mobility, visual and hearing impairments, slowed reflexes, illness, and memory loss are a few examples of changes that can create barriers to independent living and sometimes lead to isolation and loneliness. Because the number of older adults will exceed the number of all children under the age of 14 by 2050, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed a framework to help cities become more age-friendly. This entails designing and adapting a city’s natural and built environment to create accessible and safe transportation options, barrier-free access to homes and public buildings, and health care support and services so that people can maintain their health and independence for as long as possible. Such features do not just benefit the elderly, but people of all ages.

The students’ challenge:

​Identify an age-related challenge that exists in today’s urban environments and engineer two innovative solutions that allow your future city’s senior citizens to be as active and independent as they want to be.